With the use of new, relatively harder and thinner plastic hose materials, it became essential with so-called open hose clamps made from galvanized or stainless steel band material to provide internal clamping surfaces devoid of any step, gap or discontinuity, particularly at the end of the inner overlapped clamping band portion. Equally important remained the need to prevent the deflection or escape of the underlying inner band portion into the ear during plastic deformation of the ear and to reliably bridge any remaining gap underneath the plastically deformed ear of a so-called "Oetiker" ear. An effective solution which proved commercially immensely successful and which was used in hundreds of millions of clamps is described in U.S. Patent 4,299,012 which, as shown in FIG. 1 of this application and corresponding to FIG. 19 of this patent, includes a narrow tongue-like extension (61) at the end of the full-width inner band portion (11b) adapted to engage through an opening (62) that commences in the outer band portion (11a) at the beginning of a step-like portion (67). In addition to a typical "Oetiker" ear generally designated by reference numeral (13), which consists of two parallel outwardly extending leg portions 14 and 15 interconnected by a bridging portion (16) and provided with a reinforcing groove (17), FIG. 1 also shows the then-improved mechanical connection consisting of a so-called guide or suspension hook (31) and of two cold-deformed, deep-drawn support hooks (32) adapted to engage in apertures (35) in the outer band portion (11a) as also more fully described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,012. According to this patent, a channel is formed by the cuts for the elongated opening and by then pressing-out the center part (63) extending over and externally covering the tongue-like portion (61). However, the cover (63) can also be omitted by simply cutting off the material forming the opening so that the tongue-like extension (61) is then freely exposed to the outside as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,348 and as shown in FIG. 2 herein, corresponding to FIG. 12 of this last-mentioned patent. Reference numeral (20) also generally designates in FIG. 2 a different type of connection with the use of a tab-like member (20) bent-out from the inner band portion (11b) and extending through a corresponding aperture in the outer band portion (11a).
With annual productions of clamps utilizing these features exceeding several 100 millions per year, it is of interest to analyze these clamps with a view to rationalize production in order to cut material costs involving the clamping band as such. In other words, even small amounts in the length of the blank of clamping band required for a given size clamp become significant. For example, with a saving of as little as 0.25 inches in the average overall length of the blank, such saving is significant with a production of 100,000,000 clamps a year in which case the total savings would be 25,000,000 inches or 283,333 feet or 94,444 yards.